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CNN Live Saturday

Bomb Explodes in Shopping Center in Israeli Settlement

Aired February 16, 2002 - 13:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Violence in the Middle East today killed four Palestinians and we're getting late word of an explosion in a shopping center in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank. For further details, we turn to CNN's Jerrold Kessel who joins us by phone from Tel Aviv. Hi there, Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka, and yes in the first preliminary reports, the Israelis working on the assumption that this was another Palestinian suicide bombing.

The police chief in the, regional police chief in the West Bank speaking he said cautiously was the first indication of two bodies, one of whom they believe to be the bomber, another one of the Israelis, and 20 people hurt as the bomb went off in a pizzeria, small pizza restaurant in a shopping complex of one of the Jewish settlements near Nablus on the West Bank, a place called (UNINTELLIGIBLE), between Tel Aviv and Nablus, you could say on the West Bank.

And of the 20 people hurt in what seems to be another Palestinian attack, six are in serious condition, according to medical relief services who rushed to the scene. But it still is -- these still are preliminary reports, as they try to ascertain just how bad the casualties are and what was the precise cause of this blast.

This latest explosion coming as a real welter of violent incidents rocks the West Bank and Gaza over this weekend. Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas, an Israeli shop there at a checkpoint, an Israeli soldier, three Palestinians killed in Gaza during the Israeli incursion, a Palestinian militant killed in an explosion on the West Bank, and now this latest incident.

It does seem as if a stream of diverse Palestinian attacks, a string of Israeli offensive military actions in the West Bank and Gaza, have left a very, very grim picture, and whichever way you look at it, it seems to be getting only grimmer. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you very much, Jerrold Kessel, for reporting from Tel Aviv on the phone there.

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